The present application claims the benefit of priority under 35 USC §119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent Application 60/702,879, filed Jul. 27, 2005, which is hereby incorporated, in its entirety, herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to stackable, open-topped, partially-lidded, and/or fully-lidded shipping and/or display container, and more particularly to a corrugated paperboard stackable container for shipping and displaying products such as, for example, agricultural produce.
2. Prior Art
Containers made from corrugated paperboard are commonly used for shipping and storing various products, including agricultural produce. One preferred container includes a bottom wall, opposite side walls, opposite end walls, and an open top. Stacking tabs on the upper edges of the side and/or end walls engage in slots or openings in the bottom of another tray when the trays are stacked on top of one another to achieve stacking stability. These trays offer good stacking strength and stability, and also provide excellent product presentation due to the open top, and the side panel surfaces that permit display of graphics and the like. Further, recent improvements to these trays have included inwardly inclined side or end panels with correspondingly inclined stacking tabs to provide greater resistance to nesting or telescoping of stacked trays, and to allow units to be easily palletized.
Typically, these trays are formed from a single blank of corrugated paperboard scored with score lines or cut lines, and folded into a finished tray by automated machines or by hand. Machine forming can be accomplished in a continuous in-line process involving cutting, scoring and folding the trays from continuous sheets of paperboard. In order to achieve a desired stacking strength in conventional produce trays, different weights (thicknesses) of material are used in the construction of the tray.
Conventional produce trays have inner and outer side wall panels that form square outer corners and angled or diagonal inner corners. The diagonal inner corners extend into the tray interior space and limit to a certain extent the type, style or number of clamshell grape lugs, for example, that can be placed in the tray.
It would be desirable to have a tray with the advantages of the conventional produce tray, but that uses less material in its construction and has interior space to accommodate commonly used clamshell grape lugs, for example. Further, it would be desirable to have a tray or shipping and/or display container that is capable of having either a partially-lidded or fully-lidded feature that allows ventilation and/or access of goods contained therein to the consumer and protects the goods at the same time while in transport and/or during stacking.